


yours, even if i'm not

by sinkingsidewalks



Series: i want to be able to love you (without it hurting this much) [1]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M, Sorry?, another one where they married other people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-14 17:00:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14773584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinkingsidewalks/pseuds/sinkingsidewalks
Summary: Scott meets her daughter on a nondescript Wednesday in June.





	yours, even if i'm not

**Author's Note:**

> So I feel like there have been a ton of fics lately where they have kids with other people but this fell into my head all in one piece so I had to write it. Also, it's the middle of the night so I apologize for the lack of editing. I'd also like to say sorry to my sister (who will thankfully never read this) for stealing her dream baby name. But since she and Tessa are a little bit the same person, I couldn't help myself. There's a chance I may change the title in the morning if I can think of something better. Anyway, hope you enjoy, let me know what you think, and all that jazz.  
> This is a work of complete fiction.

Scott meets her daughter on a nondescript Wednesday in June.

He gets a phone call at one in the afternoon. Her name and an old selfie lighting up on his phone as he’s running out the door to the rink and it makes his pause. They talk on Sundays, almost every one. It’s consistent, even if he hasn’t seen her in months. She has her life, and he has his, and they talk every Sunday afternoon like old friends are supposed to. 

“Tessa?” he answers, just on the edge of worry. 

“Scott.” She sounds breathless, he recognizes her voice near tears, and there’s a very definitive wailing in the background that must be Vera. 

“What’s wrong?” he’s already got his car keys in his hand and he doesn’t think as he shoves his way out of the apartment, skate bag left behind. 

“I can’t-“ she takes a heavy breath, to choke down a sob. “She won’t-“

“Breathe, Tess.” He’s in his car now, a functional hatchback that’s constantly filled with the twin’s gear, cranking the key around in the ignition. He exaggerates his own breath over the line and waits for her to take a couple of near-synced gasps. “Are you at home?”

“Yeah.” She sounds a bit calmer, her breathing has smoothed out. 

“I’ll be there in ten.”

Vera wails again, a shriek that makes him cringe even through the tinny connection. Tessa whimpers along with her. “Okay.”

He gets to the house, her house, the one with the maple tree in the front yard and somehow pristine white siding, in seven minutes, having broken a couple of mild traffic laws. He parks in her driveway and hurries up the front steps. 

Tessa opens the door as he knocks looking disheveled and exhausted. Her hair is falling out of a pile atop her head, the tank top she wears has an array of tear and/or spit up stains across it, and the shadowy bags under her eyes are verging on purple. 

“Hey, Tess.” He doesn’t get halfway through his words before she’s falling into his arms. He catches her, of course he does, old habits die hard, and rubs one hand over her back. Every muscle is seized, tensed like she needs to hold herself for a lift. 

“She’s been crying for hours and I just-“ Tessa squeezes her eyes shut and turns her face into his shoulder. 

Behind her baby Vera is still screaming. She’s sitting on a light yellow blanket between Tessa’s white couch and a gated off stone fireplace with fat tears dribbling off her reddened chubby cheeks. She’s already got a pile of dark hair on her head and she’s maybe a little small for nine months but he can tell by the jut of her chin that she’s Tessa’s daughter. Tessa follows his gaze over her shoulder, her body still collapsed into his, and stares at her child like it may be an alien. 

“It’s okay.” He rubs her back again, pulling her along into the living room. She follows him only to the edge of the blanket, stays standing while he crouches down to Vera’s eye level. Her sobs taper off if only due to curiosity.

“Hi there, Vera. I’m your Uncle Scott.” He wiggles his fingers to catch her attention. Behind him, Tessa looks ready to sob again. 

Vera stares at him, makes a grab for his hand which he relinquishes to her and is quiet for a moment. Tessa sighs, Scott grins, and Vera’s lower lip pouts out again which he knows, recognizes from his own daughters, means she’s about to start up again. 

“Oh boy.” He scoops her up off the blanket and stands, getting a sharp yell for his efforts which he ignores after double checking he hasn’t accidentally hurt her. Then he starts bobbing around Tessa’s living room with her baby on his hip. 

She stares up at him and for the first time her eyes are un-scrunched enough from lack of crying that he notices how crystal clear and blue they are. And, despite the colour, how they match Tessa’s entirely. The shape, the intensity, the angle of her eyelashes, everything. His heart hiccups in his chest and he stops moving. 

Her whimpering starts up again and she wriggles, head butting into his chest. He chuckles and goes back to his half dancing, half soothing jig. “See V,” he says quietly. “Nothing to worry about.”

Vera’s still crying, he can feel her tears dampening his shirt, but it’s no longer outright sobbing, just little whimpers with a hiccup here and there or an errant outcry. 

Tessa stares at him with her eyes full of tears and soon enough he’s got _both_ of his favourite Virtue girls (don’t tell Jordan) crying into his shoulders. He pulls one hand away from Vera to hug Tess in closer. 

“Fuck.” He hears her whisper into the fabric of his t-shirt between choked off sobs. 

Vera, who whined only a little at his lack of movement, stares with newfound interest at her mother and reaches out to press one tear-damp hand against Tessa’s cheek. Tessa unfurls from Scott’s shoulder and with something of a self-deprecating laugh, takes Vera’s very little fingers and presses a tiny kiss to her knuckles. Scott’s heart melts and he has to remember with a jolt what he’s actually doing there.

“Tess,” he whispers, Vera’s cheek warm against his chest. “Where’s Marcus?”

Tessa rubs the tears off her cheeks, seeming to also come to her senses. She picks herself up off his shoulder but doesn’t move out of the circumference of his arms. “In Vancouver, for work. Again.”

He nods in an attempt at understanding. He’s never been sure what it is exactly that her husband does, but he’s gathered that it takes him to Vancouver and Toronto and New York frequently. It’s never been Scott’s favourite quality about the man. The corners of Tessa’s mouth tilt downwards and she doesn’t look into his eye so he moves on.

“When was the last time you got a full night’s sleep? Because jeez T, I love you, but you look like a wreck.”

Tessa laughs. “I genuinely have no idea.”

He frowns at her. It was obvious she’d been overworking herself these last few months, trying to get back into the swing of things after Vera, but he’d had no idea it had gotten this bad. “That’s that then. I’m not leaving until you take bath, a long one with one of those fizzy things you like, and a nap.”

“Scott, no.”

“Yup.” He leads her towards the master with one hand on her spine. 

“I can’t just leave you with her.” Vera, while still whining, seems pretty content snuggled into Scott’s arms. 

“Tess, I have done this before. I can keep her alive while you relax for a couple hours.”

“But you must have places to be.” Realization crosses her face. “Shit, it’s Wednesday. You should be at the rink!” She reaches for Vera like she’s going to just shove him out the door. 

He shakes his head. “I got one of the other guys to cover for me.” He’d texted Ethan stopped at a red light on the way over and might have sold his soul to get him to agree to coach for him so last minute but Scott doesn’t actually remember what he promised in return. Tessa opens her mouth to protest further but he cuts her off. “And the girls are with Julie tonight, so hah. You’re stuck with me.” He gives her a gentle shove and his ‘not taking no for an answer’ face. 

“Fine.” Tessa huffs, but with a smile, disappearing down the hallway.

“I don’t want to see you again until you’re weird and pruney.” He calls after her and listens to the laughter that spills back to him. 

He settles down on the couch with Vera on his lap and opens up Tessa’s Netflix. “Now,” he says, bouncing his knee lightly. “How do you feel about the Octonauts?” 

An hour later Tessa emerges looking more alive and smelling like lavender. Vera passed out halfway through the first episode, obviously exhausted from an afternoon of torturing her mother, and he’d sneakily managed to transfer her to her crib without incident. The kids show is still playing on the TV anyway. 

“Hey.” Tessa tugs at the belt of a dressing gown so old he recognizes it as she sits down on the couch beside him, half a foot between them. “She’s?”

“Asleep. Out like a light.” He waves the monitor of her way too fancy baby monitor that took him fifteen minutes to figure out in one hand then lets it slip onto the couch between them. There are slow and steady breath sounds coming from it, but nothing more. 

Tessa looks at her hands. “Thanks.” She whispers.

“It’s no problem, kiddo.” He smiles warmly and so does she at the old nickname. “Seriously, I’m always here when you need me, either of you.”

She reaches out to grip his hand and sounds choked on emotions then lets it go. “Thank you, Scott.”

They sit in comfortable silence, just listening to the breathing on the other end of the baby monitor and watching the flickering neon characters muted on the TV, until Scott can’t take it any longer. 

“You wanna tell me what’s going on?”

“Nothing’s _going on_.” She picks at a loose thread on the robe. “I’ve got a nine month old, I’m tired.”

“And Marcus-?”

She shakes her head, cutting him off. “Just tell me what’s going on with you. Please. What happened with Amelia’s science project? Is Etta still not eating cheese?”

He nods, accepting and moves on. He tells her about what latest torture the girls first grade teacher has concocted for their parents and his daughter’s various stubborn proclamations. An hour passes, then half of another and their conversation winds down. 

Tessa picks up the baby monitor and fiddles with the settings. “I should get her up soon. It’s getting late for a nap.”

He wrests the monitor gently out of her hand. “I think she can handle being off her schedule for one night, Tess.”

After a long stare where he thinks she’s going to argue, she nods slowly. 

“Are you sure you’re okay, Tess?”

“Yeah,” she says quickly. Too quickly, but her eyes cut away from his and her shoulders tighten so she obviously really doesn’t want to talk about it. He tries the only other way he knows how to help her. 

“Come skating with me tomorrow.” He pleads.

She hesitates. She’s been back on the ice, that he knows of, once since Vera was born. They’d snuck in a late night practice when she was about three months old and they could get the rink to themselves. They’d hardly done more than skate around laps, had done a bit of simple dancing, but he’d seen how hard Tessa’s knees had been shaking by the end of the hour after ten long months stuck on dry land.

“Come on, T. I’m sure Kate would be happy to watch her. Hell, Alma would probably be thrilled to take her. Just,” he pauses and takes her hand. “Come skating with me.”

She bites her lip, then nods definitively. “Okay.”

He grins. “Knew you’d cave.” 

Laughing, she says teasingly. “You know I’m _helpless_ when it comes to you.”

“You always have been.” He chuckles, it’s the opposite of the truth, he’s the one who’s always been a wreck without her. Then: “Do you want me to stay?” He offers in a too quiet voice, both of them knowing he doesn’t mean for the afternoon.

Tessa bites her lip. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“I would sleep in the guest room, Tess.” He says plainly. She is still married after all, even if he’s not.

Her gaze flickers up to meet his and there’s still as much fire in their connection as there was when he was thirty or twenty-five or eighteen. She bites her lip, looks like she may be considering it, then shakes her head. “Still.”

“Okay.” He accepts and pulls her into his side. “Now let’s get this hell off your TV.” He picks up the remote. “Funny Face? Or Breakfast at Tiffany’s?”

She sighs, relaxing into him and shakes her head. “You pick.”

 _“Anything?”_ He posits with a raised eyebrow, flicking through her queue on the screen. 

Tessa smiles, soft and tired, the same grin he’d left Vera with, asleep in her crib. “Whatever you like.”


End file.
